Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Contrails.....as in condensation trails.

The internet will never substitute a personal face to face meeting or family reunion. I you believe that human contact is not important, you are losing your humanity. I feel sorry for you.

Quoting RTSplayer:


Why?

Internet is the speed of light.

Visiting relatives or vacations are understandable, because that's money people are going to spend anyway.

Flying around for business doesn't even make economic sense, because whatever you were going to do could be done by internet teleconferencing.

Quoting RTSplayer:


Why?

Internet is the speed of light.

Visiting relatives or vacations are understandable, because that's money people are going to spend anyway.

Flying around for business doesn't even make economic sense, because whatever you were going to do could be done by internet teleconferencing.

Telecommuting isn't secure at all. Most companies don't want people snooping on their meetings.

It was a nice chill in the air this morning.It's gonna try to warm up in the low-mid 80's this weekend.Only to get knocked back down to 70.Gonna need the heater over night starting next week.

Quoting washingtonian115:
I'am praying that the NAO continues in negative territory through winter.Crossing fingers here.

Make sure you cross for fingers about the negative PDO remaining strong as well. If it doesn't remain powerfu, throw out the prospects of a winter as cool as some, including myself, are predicting.

Tropical Storm NADINE
...NADINE CONTINUES TO PASS SOUTH OF THE AZORES...
11:00 AM AST Thu Sep 20
Location: 36.2°N 29.4°W
Moving: ESE at 10 mph
Min pressure: 981 mb
Max sustained: 50 mph

Quoting msphar:
Planes are an accepted form of travel by society. To try to change that reminds one of the Man of La Mancha.

Good Luck! You'll need it.

Oh, it'll change eventually, when we run out of oil and natural gas; I expect when oil runs out, they'll try using liquified natural gas in retrofitted planes (and trains,) but eventually that will be depleted too.


Hydrogen is a joke, and is only going to be useful if you have an ultra-cheap, ultra-clean way of producing the Hydrogen. This implies either a biological means, or hydro, wind, solar, or nuclear. Of course, hydro is almost certainly out of the question unless we tap the Gulf Stream, because we've already dammed up every river we aren't using as a primary transport.

For the U.S., we'll need to cover half the country in wind and solar in order to make up for phasing out coal anyway, so what's left? Double or triple up on nuclear power plants, and use almost all of it for producing "clean" hydrogen?

Of course, there's enormous amounts of Geothermal energy in the U.S., but nobody uses it, because the majority of it is in Yellowstone and other protected national parks. Yellowstone has unimaginable heat reserves, and plenty of water, so it's perfect.

Ironically, in this case, if we quit trying so hard to save the environment...we'd do a better job of saving the environment.

And for what? So we can keep driving 50 miles both ways to work, and fly half-way around the world by the tens of millions every day?

Geothermal energy in the United States continues to be an area of considerable activity. In 2010, the United States led the world in geothermal electricity production with 3,086 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity from 77 power plants;[1][2] the largest group of geothermal power plants in the world is located at The Geysers, a geothermal field in California.[3] The United States generates an average of 15 billion kilowatt hours of geothermal power per year, comparable to burning some 25 million barrels (4,000,000 m3) of oil or 6 million short tons of coal per year.[4]
Geothermal power plants are largely concentrated in the western states. They are the fourth largest source of renewable electricity, after hydroelectricity, biomass, and wind power. A geothermal resource assessment shows that nine western states together have the potential to provide over 20 percent of national electricity needs.

...

In 2009, investment bank Credit Suisse calculated that geothermal power costs 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, versus 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for coal.

...

While the carrier medium for geothermal electricity (water) must be properly managed, the source of geothermal energy, the Earth's heat, will be available, for most intents and purposes, indefinitely

From Wikipedia.

Sorry for such a long quote, but it's necessary.



If you want to stop pollution, especially CO2, there's your answer. Replace as much Coal as possible by Geothermal. It's CHEAPER and cleaner. Sure there are things like sulfur and other corrosive compounds, but the fact that the energy costs so much less more than makes up for it. Besides, sulfur actually cools the atmosphere, which would help offset AGW some as well, and in terms of acid rain and ocean acidification, it will be about the same as Carbonic acid we are creating by the billions of tons per year anyway.


Geothermal:
No CO2, 40% cheaper, unlimited supply (in human terms,) and about the same acid.

vs

Oil, natural gas, and Coal:
LOTS of CO2 and about the same acid, and prices driven by inflation and demand, supply runs out in a few decades anyway...

Hmmm, it's not a hard choice.

Going to require switching one day soon anyway, so may as well get started ASAP.


Of course this is relevant to weather, as all pollution is relevant to weather.


If they want to protect Yellowstone, fine, leave it as a national park, and have the U.S. government build power plants there and sell the energy, that way a capitalistic company doesn't get to control it, and you get rid of the middle man so it will be cheaper anyway.

Quoting TropicalAnalystwx13:

Make sure you cross for fingers about the negative PDO remaining strong as well. If it doesn't remain powerfu, throw out the prospects of a winter as cool as some, including myself, are predicting.

It doesnt matter how cold winter is for me, its all luck with a low and a cold airmass lining up to produce snow in GA, (which happens a more often in a -NAO)

I spy a grammar error with the doctor's post, but I'm not even mad.

I circled potential AOI:

GFS and Canadian are on board with this one.



Long range disturbance in the Caribbean:

Quoting GeorgiaStormz:


It doesnt matter how cold winter is for me, its all luck with a low and a cold airmass lining up to produce snow in GA, (which happens a more often in a -NAO)

Florida deserves a cold winter LOL

Quoting Thing342:
Telecommuting isn't secure at all. Most companies don't want people snooping on their meetings.

Make your own encryption algorithm, obviously, and don't pattern it after any existing algorithm.


I can make something right now which would use thousands of rotating keywords for each additional message and would require obscene amounts of time for a computer of any type to crack even if the same keyword was used twice in a row, by some accident.

The reason existing algorithms for encryption get cracked is because they are too simplistic.

One of the biggest problems is standardized documentation markups in things like spreadsheets and other database tools, as well as HTML. These standardized tags become easy targets for decryption. One possibility would be to develop a markup language with rotating tag names.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic now, but the point is there are lots of "non-quantum" solutions to encryption which are nearly impossible to crack under any circumstances. People have just been too lazy to bother doing it.

Quoting HuracandelCaribe:
The internet will never substitute a personal face to face meeting or family reunion. I you believe that human contact is not important, you are losing your humanity. I feel sorry for you.

I did say visiting family and vacations are understandable.

Wow. Don't dehumanize me unless you fully read what I said at least.

Link

hopefully some credible evidence

Quoting caneswatch:
I spy a grammar error with the doctor's post, but I'm not even mad.

That would be "a grammatical error", or an error in grammar.

It is supposed to snow in Norway this winter.

Quoting caneswatch:
I spy a grammar error with the doctor's post, but I'm not even mad.

computer models is predicting

It's OK. Dr. M gets a pass on this one.........

Quoting sheople:
Link

hopefully some credible evidence

Credible - yes. But evidence of what?

Quoting wxmod:


Chemtrails is not a debunked conspiracy theory. If you have some study that proves the theory is invalid, please show it to me. Until you prove that to me, you are making absurd accusations on this weather blog where you should post only facts.
For my part this morning, I posted satellite photos of man made weather caused by an absurd number of jets flying around. I called them CHEMTRAILS because that is a standard accepted theory for that phenomenon; maybe that disagrees with your theory, but most people believe it.
You should also have provided links to the radiative forcing nonsense you posted.

You're throwing the "f" word (fact) around at other people, then simultaneously you are making claims of a conspiracy theory where government is controlling weather through the use of planes?

Wow, what a tangled web we weave...

Here is a response to the Atlantic article about natural gas, which I linked to earlier:

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/natur al-gas-doesnt-mean-the-end-of-global-warming/

Quote:

Such articles fail to recognize two fundamental problems with the "Fracking Will Save Us All" meme.

1. Burning natural gas domestically doesn't keep coal in the ground. As US coal consumption decreased, coal exports increased.



It's great that US emissions dropped. But the atmosphere and ocean don't care where the coal gets burned.

2. These low natural gas prices are unsustainable. The US Energy Administration forecasts:

Because of the projected increase in natural gas prices relative to coal, EIA expects the recent trend of substituting coal-fired electricity generation with natural gas generation to slow and likely reverse over the next year. From April through August 2012, average monthly natural gas prices to electric generators increased by 34 percent, while coal prices fell slightly. EIA expects that coal-fired electricity generation will increase by 9 percent in 2013, while natural gas generation will fall by about 10 percent.

I should have said credible evidence for the existence of chemtrails

Quoting wxmod:


Chemtrails is not a debunked conspiracy theory. If you have some study that proves the theory is invalid, please show it to me.

Ten seconds on google led me to this. Have you seen it?

Chemtrail conspiracy theory

Have you seen this?

Aircraft Contrails Factsheet

Or this?

Scientific Studies Regarding Aircraft Contrails and Cloud Formation

.

Quoting wxmod:


Chemtrails is not a debunked conspiracy theory. If you have some study that proves the theory is invalid, please show it to me. Until you prove that to me, you are making absurd accusations on this weather blog where you should post only facts.
For my part this morning, I posted satellite photos of man made weather caused by an absurd number of jets flying around. I called them CHEMTRAILS because that is a standard accepted theory for that phenomenon; maybe that disagrees with your theory, but most people believe it.
You should also have provided links to the radiative forcing nonsense you posted.

Technically, there would be "Chemtrails" even if there were no conspiracy anyway. If nothing else, CO2 and CO are produced, along with other pollutants from partial burning, as no combustion engine produces 100% full burning.

Even without a conspiracy, I'd expect:

CO2
CO
OH

From fuel components and impurities:
Nitrates
Phosphates
Sulfates
Mercury


Some metal oxides from depletion of engine components.

I believe there is a hint of a circulation at the end tail of the front in the western Gulf of Mexico,as shown on the Rainbow loop,the CMC model pick-up on one of their runs yesterday,developing a Tropical storm then moving East to South Florida,let's see what happens,this is very typical to happens this time of year from a stalled front.

Well if i have learned one thing this year it's that without model support there is little chance of development. That being said I'll still watch the area passing by Jamaica this morning to see how it behaves when it runs into the stalled front.

Quoting wxmod:


Chemtrails is not a debunked conspiracy theory. If you have some study that proves the theory is invalid, please show it to me. Until you prove that to me, you are making absurd accusations on this weather blog where you should post only facts.
For my part this morning, I posted satellite photos of man made weather caused by an absurd number of jets flying around. I called them CHEMTRAILS because that is a standard accepted theory for that phenomenon; maybe that disagrees with your theory, but most people believe it.
You should also have provided links to the radiative forcing nonsense you posted.

Global radiative forcing is included in the IPCC executive summary. I provided a citation for contrail radiative forcing; you are free to use your academic database to access it if you are actually interested in data and not wild conspiracy theories plucked from your rear.

Chemtrails are *not* a standard accepted theory, especially given the literally decades of research that have gone into contrail formation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the idea that governments are engaged in a massive chemical spraying operation is the height of ludicrousness. There is *no* evidence for chemtrails at all; it is debunked by the same reason the invisible pink insubstantial unicorn living in my garage is debunked, on the basis of lack of *any* evidence whatsoever. Every time there's a test - as an example, KSLA's story on supposed barium spraying in February of 2011 - it turns out there's absolutely nothing there.

You are piling on more and more unsupported assertions; you're now up to "chemical trails are modifying the weather," "chemtrails are an accepted phenomenon," and also "the appropriate way to handle extraordinary claims is to demand other people disprove them first." It's astonishing and a stain on a blog devoted to science and rational interpretation of data.

Quoting MississippiWx:


You're throwing the "f" word (fact) around at other people, then simultaneously you are making claims of a conspiracy theory where government is controlling weather through the use of planes?

Wow, what a tangled web we weave...

Whoa bubba, I said absolutely nothing about government controlling weather or conspiracy. This stuff is done by private industry and it's for the purpose of enhancing rainfall on city water supplies and power dams.

Quoting CaicosRetiredSailor:
Here is a response to the Atlantic article about natural gas, which I linked to earlier:

http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/natur al-gas-doesnt-mean-the-end-of-global-warming/

Quote:

Such articles fail to recognize two fundamental problems with the %u201CFracking Will Save Us All%u201D meme.

1. Burning natural gas domestically doesn%u2019t keep coal in the ground. As US coal consumption decreased, coal exports increased.



It%u2019s great that US emissions dropped. But the atmosphere and ocean don%u2019t care where the coal gets burned.

2. These low natural gas prices are unsustainable. The US Energy Administration forecasts:

Because of the projected increase in natural gas prices relative to coal, EIA expects the recent trend of substituting coal-fired electricity generation with natural gas generation to slow and likely reverse over the next year. From April through August 2012, average monthly natural gas prices to electric generators increased by 34 percent, while coal prices fell slightly. EIA expects that coal-fired electricity generation will increase by 9 percent in 2013, while natural gas generation will fall by about 10 percent.

In order to maintain the status quo on net national CO2 production, we need to cut per-capita use of Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas(methane) consumption by about 14% per decade just to keep up with native population growth plus Immigration.

Seeing as how I've already cited facts showing that Geothermal is cheaper than coal by about 40%, and is arguably in the top 2 most reliable "clean energy" sources, then there is no good reason not to max out on Geothermal ASAP. It's cheaper per unit energy than Wind, it's as reliable as Hydro, heck maybe even more reliable, and it's about as energy dense as solar, though only in isolated areas.

Think about that. California alone is 20% of the nation's population, so if you can get 20% of our electricity needs just from the 9 western states mentioned in the wiki article, California is within range to ship the power. Plus it doesn't all need to be sent to California anyway, as they have immense solar potential as well.

The funny thing is, the energy companies are operated by idiots, especially the electricity companies. They should have made these changes decades ago.

Link

IF you look long enough and hard enough you can find the information you want to support your view on any particular subject.

I have also personally seen planes looping around in the sky, flying abnormal flight paths. These are not normal commercial flights. I just have to question things like this.

The convection approaching the N Leewards this morning has dissipated and is now cirrus debris only. If it was for the windwards, sure it would not dissipate.

Quoting Grothar:


That would be "a grammatical error", or an error in grammar.

Understood master.

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